Various types of telecommunications services that are available to customers require the customer to verbally communicate with a person or with an automated system in order for the customer to utilize the service. For example, the customer may be asked to respond to a series of audible questions or prompts in order for a telecommunications service to be provided to the customer. The audible questions or prompts can be transmitted to the customer by a person, such as an operator, or by an automated system, and can be transmitted in any number of languages. The customer, who may speak any number of languages, may be asked to respond with verbal or spoken answers to the questions or prompts. In order for the telecommunications service to be effectively provided to the customer, it is important that the customer be able to communicate in the language that is spoken by the person or that is implemented by the automated system and that the person or automated system be able to communicate in the language that is spoken by the customer.
In an effort to ensure that the customer can effectively communicate with the person or the automated system, various systems have been developed that allow for different languages to be used for such communications. In some of these systems, the user's language preference is stored and accessed in an effort to ensure that the customer and the person or automated system can communicate with one another. However, these systems generally have multiple shortcomings. Among other things, these systems suffer from a lack of centralized storage of a user's language preference and a lack of effective and efficient retrial and access of the user's language preference. Also, these systems are not designed for use with an advanced intelligent network (AIN) type of telecommunications system, which utilizes triggered queries to facilitate the retrieval and transmission of information between network elements.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,841,862 describes a system in which a user's language preference is stored in a database. The language preference is retrieved by the originating switch as soon as the user initiates protocol for a dial tone, and then the language preference is transmitted through the telephone network along with a telephone call. This system is inefficient in that it always retrieves a language preference, even when it is not needed for the current telephone call. Also, this system retrieves the language preference at the first stage of the call, long before it may be needed, and then transmits the language preference along with the telephone call. Accordingly, this system does not incorporate centralized storage of a user's language preference and does not effectively and efficiently retrieve and access the user's language preference. In addition, this system is not designed for use with an AIN.
A system that overcomes the deficiencies noted above is needed.